


don't mean to brag, but my bandwidth is fat

by harperuth



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, M/M, Multiple implied pairings, Transformers Plug and Play Sexual Interfacing, tailgate's hot boy summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:00:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23159686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harperuth/pseuds/harperuth
Summary: “Kid,” Ratchet ex-vented, “Did you listen to anything I just said?”Tailgate’s visor flashed, for just a klik. First Aid almost thought it was a trick of the light, “Big war, modified interface arrays, do I want one, et cetera. I listened. And I said no.”
Relationships: First Aid/Tailgate
Comments: 24
Kudos: 125





	don't mean to brag, but my bandwidth is fat

**Author's Note:**

> so i saw that panel of tailgate being bitchy to magnus about dirt on his desk, and that panel of first aid being bitchy to mirage about questioning his plans, and i just. wanted those boys tossed together in a bitchy bitchy union. i've also wanted to write about tailgate not wanting a sticky array bc he's a pnp master for just as long so. here we are.
> 
> title is from 'no flex' by tiny meat gang

It started, as most things seemed to these days, with Tailgate causing an uproar.

“No, thank you,” He said happily, in response to Ratchet’s offer of installing the interface array upgrade that had hit their species some fourish million years previous, when it became apparent that hardline interfacing during a civil upheaval was going to be a little difficult when no one trusted one another with access to their processor.

“Er, what?” Ratchet responded, sounding genuinely thrown for the first time in all the time that First Aid had known him.

“No, thank you?” Tailgate still sounded happy and...self-assured. He’d spent a lot of time in the medbay since joining the Lost Light, between the legs and attaching the legs and reintegrating the legs into his system and post-reintegration check ups and— Well, suffice to say, First Aid was reasonably sure he had a bead on Tailgate’s energy any given day, and self-assured was _not it_. 

“Kid,” Ratchet ex-vented in that gusty sigh way of his that was meant to impart how much older and wiser he was than you. First Aid had yet to tell him it didn’t really do anything except make him seem annoyed. Then again, knowing Ratchet, that was actually what he was going for, “Did you listen to anything I just said?”

Tailgate’s visor flashed, for just a klik. First Aid almost thought it was a trick of the light, “Big war, modified interface arrays, do I want one, et cetera. I listened. And I said no.”

“Touch is important,” Ratchet gentled, as much as he was able, “Especially when you’ve had the massive reintegration that you’ve had. Interface is a good way to do that.”

“Did everyone get their ports _removed?_ ” Tailgate asked, sounding horrified.

“No,” Ratchet frowned, “It’s just— No one—”

“Well,” Tailgate drew himself up, sitting tall and straight as he was able, “I’m someone.”

Ratchet hadn’t had a response, Tailgate wasn’t going to frag anyone on board, and that, First Aid supposed, was that.

\- - -

It was very much not that.

“Ouch! Mini Doc!” Whirl complained when First Aid plugged a diagnostic pad into his lateral abdominal port.

“I’m not a minibot,” First Aid said on instinct before frowning behind his mask, “Wait, what do you mean ‘ow’?”

Whirl had the gall to look _smug_ and abashed at the same time, “Port’s a little sore.”

“Your—” First Aid let the pad run it’s basic diagnostics, not that he thought he needed any. Thrown Into A Wall was a pretty apparent diagnosis, Whirl’s medical history notwithstanding, “Your lateral abdominal port is sore.”

Whirl leaned back on the medberth, wincing when he tried to put his weight on his crumpled left shoulder joint, “Yupp.”

“Did you—” First Aid cycled his intake, “The damage you reported is on your left side.”

“Yupp,” Whirl’s optic curved up into a grin shape.

First Aid cycled his intake again. Then his vents, “As much as this pains me, it’s my duty as a medic to ask why your lateral abdominal port is sore.”

Whirl cackled, “I like you Mini Doc.”

“Whirl—” First Aid started.

“Got some,” Whirl interrupted, “And then some more. And more. For a little bot, Tailgate has _stamina_.”

\- - - 

“Careful there,” Skids winced when First Aid’s digits trailed over his femoral port cover. The plating around it was dented from... _something_ no one was confessing to. 

First Aid didn’t think anything of it, of course his touch was uncomfortable, the plating was pushing down on internals in a way that wasn’t any picnic even if it wasn’t the more vital internals under a bot’s chassis. Of course, then Skids had to _keep talking_.

“Port’s pretty sore.”

First Aid flickered his gaze up to Skids’s smirking face, “Yes, I imagine. Your leg was nearly crushed.”

“It was sore before that,” Skids hummed, every mechanometer of him radiating smugly satisfied. First Aid flattened the light in his visor and went back to undenting plating.

“Was hardline always that good?” Skids asked. First Aid grit his denta.

“I’m afraid I can’t comment,” He managed to unjam the catch on the port cover and popped it open, “I’m administering the EMP patch now.”

“Aw buy me a drink first, Aid,” Skids winked. 

First Aid ignored that _and_ the sound Skids made when the administrative plug touched his port.

\- - -

Swerve offered up his wrist joint port. 

First Aid cycled his optics.

“Um,” Swerve held his wrist joint a little higher.

“Sorry!” First Aid yelped, plugging the datapad in, “I— You— Sorry, Swerve.”

“It’s okay,” Swerve looked down, his pedes swinging far above the ground perched on the medberth as he was.

The datapad warmed in his hands as it bypassed system after system to reach the correct diagnostic uplinks. First Aid kept his optics on it. He wasn’t asking. He wasn’t going to ask.

“It just seems weird, y’know?” Oh Primus save him, “To let a datapad into your close systems after um, well—”

The datapad pinged. First Aid nodded to indicate he was listening, but very intently _did not look up_.

“I mean—” Swerve laughed a little bit, “You don’t want to feel like you’re getting intimate with a _pad_ —”

“All clear,” First Aid announced, “Your coding and autonomic systems are fine.”

“And my firewalls?” Swerve asked.

First Aid froze. Frag it all to the Pits, he _had_ to ask, “What firewall protection are you looking for in particular?”

“Hardline interfacing?” Swerve squeaked out.

\- - - 

It kept happening. 

Mech after mech commenting on their sore ports, or offering up a wrist joint rather than the easier to connect with lateral abdominal, femoral, or even _dorsal_ port. Mechs asking about firewall protections. Mechs with _shorted out circuitry_.

“You have to be kidding me,” First Aid said flatly, staring Rodimus down.

Rodimus shrugged, hopping up on a berth uninvited. His single lit optic was dim, and the plating around his lateral abdominal port was _singed_ , “Apparently the Matrix amplifies hardline stuff.”

First Aid sighed and went to go dig up the optical toolkit.

\- - -

He wasn’t sure why Ambulon stumbling in for his shift looking dazed and running digits over his femoral port was the last straw but. It was.

First Aid stormed out of the Medbay, tossing the shift change report at Ambulon. It smacked off his chassis and clattered to the floor. Ambulon mumbled, “The frag, Aid?”

He ignored him.

Swerve’s bar was crowded, the interchange between Beta and Gamma shifts always busy. First Aid marched in, ignoring the jeers and calls as he headed right for Tailgate.

Tailgate’s mouth plate was off, a straw tucked into his intake and First Aid faltered, trying to look anywhere else. They were in _public_.

“Tailgate,” First grit out and stopped. His HUD pinged a warning that he was stressing the struts in his hands and he realized that he was clenching his fists. His vents picked up and he didn’t even know what he was _doing here_.

Was he here to yell about injuries? Barring Rodimus, no one had been actually injured. Soreness after interface of any kind was common. Was he here to yell about Ambulon? Ambulon was his own mech, he could do as he pleased.

Tailgate set his drink down with an obscene popping noise. First Aid very carefully didn’t watch his exposed intake work the last of his drink down. Didn’t watch. Nope. _Public_.

“Hey First Aid,” Tailgate slipped his mouth plate back into place, “You alright?”

“I—” First Aid’s vocalizer shorted.

Tailgate’s visor tracked him up and down, “Okay, sure.”

“ _What?_ ” First Aid couldn’t have heard that correctly.

“C’mon,” Tailgate hopped out of his chair and grabbed First Aid’s servo, towing him out of Swerve’s.

“Get some, ‘Gate!” Someone yelled behind them.

\- - -

“Oh slag,” First Aid’s visor offlined. 

His plating tingled like hundreds of digits were trailing over it, but _no one was touching him_. His array cover pinged for release. Tailgate denied it.

“You bots are so obsessed with those things,” He hummed, sounding barely strung out for all that First Aid was already feeling _wrecked_ , “Like it’s the only way to have fun.”

The tingling redirected to his _protoform_ , crawling across circuits and delicate mesh that hadn’t felt touch beyond surgery in _vorns_. First Aid moaned.

“There you go,” Tailgate hummed, “Let’s see what we’re working with.”

First Aid felt soft pulsing through his core coding, the feeling so different, so _alien_ , that his processor struggled to interpret it. Tailgate huffed a laugh and pushed it into his pleasure centers. 

“Oh slag,” First Aid arched up, “Please—”

“What’s this?” Tailgate cooed, stroking over First Aid’s personality matrix, “Oh Aid, you’re a delight, aren’t you?”

“Tailgate—” First Aid sobbed, his array was pinging insistently, spike strained in its housing, valve cycling down tighter and tighter against nothing, nodes sparking against each other, a circuit unable to close.

“You should let that out more often,” Tailgate groaned, “Oh, huh, this is gonna be a good one.”

First Aid screamed, charge cascading from his helm to his pedes in waves across his entire frame. Distantly he realized that Tailgate was _directing_ the charge, but he was busy overloading himself a new processor.

“Oh _slag_ ,” First Aid garbled out.

“Yeah, it was good for me too,” Tailgate sounded a little ventless, which First Aid considered kind of mollifying. 

\- - - 

First Aid posted a standard firewall protection for download to the general Lost Light board on his next off-shift.

It received one hundred and seventy five hits within three groon.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me about bitchy robots on twitter @floralpunkcfb


End file.
